November Photo Journal

These pictures are from Nov 1-17. 

The weather was in the 60's and 70's for several days. We were able to play in the leaves again and enjoy the outdoors!

My view from the kitchen sink window. Can you see the boys?

Tanner and Dallin had a lot of fun building forts in the basement. They always have some kind of pillow fort or a boat house being constructed.

For snack one day, we had strawberries with whip cream. I was intrigued by how differently my boys chose to eat because it was a perfect reflection of their personalities. Tanner meticulously cut his strawberries into slices...

Then ate it carefully with a spoon.

Dallin took a couple bites out of his berries, then discovered the cream, and went all in!

Lilia and Manny took us out to eat at the Chinese buffet. We had a great time!

There was a hot air balloon out back one morning.

Dallin asked Jeremy for a ham and jelly sandwich. Huh? Jeremy decided why not, and made one for him. It was actually really good!

Hurray for being innovative with food, Dallin! 

Lol, this just happens to be the next picture in our files. Another silly way to eat food. Dallin loves shredded cheese in a bowl. He eats it by the spoonfull!

On our last night with Lilia and Manny, we ate a yummy dinner together. I made cashew chicken and Lilia made egg rolls. Manny made more paper kites for the boys and we wrote down the instructions so we can remember how he does it. We gave the Bravos several special cards that we made.

Tanner and Manny worked hard on the kites together.

The next day, it was time for them to go. Tanner cried and cried and cried. Dallin cried too. I was able to hold my tears back until after they drove away, then I cried, too. We were so blessed to have them in our home from Sept 5 - Nov 12, almost 10 weeks! While they were here renting from us, they cleaned our dishes and kitchen everyday, helped babysit, kept the boys company and made us yummy Filipino food. They joined us for many meals, especially Sunday meals, and for family night every week. I learned some Tagalog phrases and some Flilipino recipes. And we had many fun outings as seen in previous posts. This picture was taken right before they drove away, so everyone is a little sad.

The last couple of weeks that they were with us was spent helping them figure out where to move next on their journey to visit/live with family. I felt bad seeing their plans fall through over and over again, along with them being very sick, it was hard on all of us. But eventually, God opened a door for them to go to Kansas where a family member can take care of their car while they travel overseas. Jeremy volunteered to drive them there. He said it was one of the best road trips he's ever had. He took their van, dropped them off, and then came home on a greyhound bus. 

We have missed the Bravos a lot. But we are glad they are visiting/living with family that they haven't seen in many years. We will always remember the sweet spirit that Lilia and Manny brought into our home! Salamat and Mahal kita!!! (thank you and I love you!!)

Here's a little project we worked on one morning. It's for the song "Grey Squirrel." I got some cute videos of them singing, but can't post those here.

A trip to the Spam Museum one afternoon (or morning? I can't remember). Yes, shorts in November!

We were able to go to the library one morning in between my teaching schedules. We don't make it to the library too much, mostly because we have hundreds of our own books, several that the boys still have not read. Their favorite part about the library was playing on the computer, haha.

I made some sensory trays for the boys with flower and brown sugar so that they could practice writing their names in the "sand" with their fingers. (thanks to Sheila for the idea).They loved it and we did it several times over the month.

Check out this fort I made with the boys! A fun way to spend a November day.

Halloween 2016

Halloween was really fun this year. Our kids are at the perfect age for it! Tanner was a cheetah and Dallin was an alligator. The boys enjoyed doing projects and singing songs all throughout October related to Halloween. On Halloween day we especially did a lot of singing.

This year, I didn't do a family costume theme. Tanner wanted to be yet another type of wild cat that roars, and I am out of family themes that have to do with wild cats, haha. (Last year he was a tiger, so we were African safari theme. The year before last, he was a lion, so we did Wizard of oz.) So instead, I just got the boys costumes that are also warm pajamas, so we can use these costumes all winter long to keep them warm.

A few days before Halloween, we enjoyed a little carnival at church put together by the cub scouts. Tanner and Dallin thought the donuts on a string was fun!

But I think this was their favorite station.

Lilia and Manny came with us to the carnival and enjoyed watching all the kids. 

I was a gypsie at the carnival.

For breakfast on Halloween, we made ghost pancakes.

After we dropped Tanner off for school, Dallin fell asleep on the way home. Nice and cozy in his costume!

After Tanner's preschool, I took the boys to the Hormel corporate office to trick-or-treat. This is our only time during the whole year to see where Daddy works, so it's almost more exciting than getting candy. For those that might have forgotten, Jeremy is the brand manager of Hormel Natural Choice Lunchmeat.  

Dallin liked this award that Jeremy got.

I liked all his product boxes on display.

His desk turns into a standing desk, and he uses the standing option a little bit everyday.

Then off we went from cubical to cubical. We were not really prepared for the boys' reactions to everything. Almost every candy we came to was a big mystery to our kids.

Jeremy- Oooh they have starbursts!

Tanner- What are starbursts?

J- fruity candy.

Dallin- Is it chocolate?

J- No. But it's still candy.

T- But candy is bad for you!

D- I only want chocolate.

That's how it went for about the first half of our trick-or-treating experience. They didn't know what starbursts, snickers, skittles, laffy taffy, reese's peanut butter cups and other candy was, But they sure were excited about all the signs of Spam, pepperoni and other Hormel products that were around the office! LOL. Honestly, this made Jeremy and I really proud. Seems like our personal limit to reduce sweets to just dark chocolate has actually made a difference for us AND our kids.

But our kids' limited exposure to candies was only part of the story. Tanner was refusing to let grown-ups put candy in his bag. It started with just a quiet shake of his head or a kind "no thank you." But as he kept discovering that every cubical was offering candy, Tanner got more and more upset. "Candy again!? Why is everyone giving out candy? What about healthy food??" We had no idea he was going to act this way! I was torn. I loved how he wanted healthy food, but it was also really embarrassing because he was being rude to everyone about it. 

We pulled Tanner aside and talked it through. He was afraid that he would have to eat all the candy that night! And he didn't want to get sick from it all. I remembered how a couple weeks earlier, he ate some sweets and got a tummy ache, which must have been the trigger to this worry. So we assured him he doesn't have to eat any of the candy, but he should be nice and put some in his bag. We also assured him that a little bit of candy is okay to eat. And I promised him I would throw away anything we don't want to eat.

Tanner was better for the rest of the corporate trick or treating. There were several cubicals that gave away fruit snacks and toys, which Tanner was really excited about. After 45 minutes, we headed to Sacred Heart Nursing Home to trick or treat there and say hello to the grandmas and grandpas, but the treats were all gone. So we headed home for dinner.

After dinner, we headed out for some trick-or -treating on the town. The weather was warm, in the 50's I think.

Manny was kind enough to hand out candy to all the kids that came to our door. He even kept a tally of how many kids came, it was something like 40.

Like every year, we made stops to our neighbors houses.

And then we went to a neighborhood with sidewalks and homes closer together. The boys had a much better time trick-or treating in the neighborhoods. Maybe the excitement of going door to door was the difference, or maybe they changed their mind about candy. Maybe it was that we ran into our friends (Kristen and Riley that came to Wisconsin with us) that got them excited about candy? Whatever it was, we had fun!

We didn't stay out too late (per Jeremy's request). I was able to convince him to take us to a few houses in the back of our neighborhood. On the ride there, Dallin was singing the trick-or-treat song from the show Little Einstein's, so I suggested that at the next house we coiuld sing the song to the people and maybe they will give us lots of candy! We stepped up and sang to the tune of In the Hall of the Mountain King by Greig, "We are here to trick or treat, trick or treat, trrck or treat. We are here to trick or treat, Oh Happy Halloween!!!" The people were impressed, but they only gave the boys one candy each.
Tanner was irate. "Mom, you were WRONG!! This is so stupid, I want to go home!" I reminded him that I didn't say they would, I said maybe they would. "Let's just try it at one more house and see what happens, ok?" Both boys agreed.
At the next stranger's house, we sang again. The man LOVED it and said, "That is the best trick or treating I've ever heard! You deserve extra candy for that!" And he gave both boys HUGE handfuls of his candy to them. Haha!! We decided that was a perfect way to end the adventures!

 We had lots of time to sort through the treasures at home. We discovered that Dallin's favorite candies are suckers. The oral sensory input from those suckers is pretty satisfying for this little kid. 

Tanner ate several kinds of candy, but he was mostly interested in the kit to build a foam pirate ship that he got as a treat! The boys and Jeremy worked on those ships a long time. 

When it was past time for bed, the boys lit up some special green and orange flashlights that they got from school. They turned off all the lights and did a light and dance show for us! They did jumping, twirling, zigzagging, waving hands like crazy everywhere! We couldn't believe they had so much energy after all we had done. It was so fun seeing our boys in complete excitement over a simple flashlight. What a fun family day. We were all very happy!!